Eisner died last week at the age of 87. While it’s folly to really express great sorrow at the loss of a long, fruitful and ultimately happy life, it’s nonetheless incredibly sad that the world, and comics, no longer has one of its greatest innovators and boosters as a part of it.

To people outside of comics, it’s not hyperbole to tell you that Eisner meant as much or more to comics than Charles Schulz meant to comic strips. His characters might not have resonated with the world at large the way Schulz’s did—regular people could never compete with cutely drawn children and animals—but his impact was at least as profound. I don’t say this to take anything away from Schulz—his impact on comic strips was greater than any before or after him—but Eisner’s influence on comics was greater still. Both men opened up the possibilities of their respective fields in ways that forever altered the way people who view comics. Just to put this loss that you might not have even heard about in perspective.

I could never sum up the man’s career as good as Scott Tipton did elsewhere on this site back in 2003, nor would I even try. Instead, I just wanted to talk a little bit about Eisner, my personal experience with the man, and some reasons why even those of you who don’t normally read comics would do well to seek out his work.

I came to Eisner’s works late. It was only when DC Comics got the license to reprint all of his graphic novels a few years ago that I even read his work. I knew he created The Spirit back before World War II, and that comics’ version of the Academy Awards were named after him, but that was about it. Then I read A CONTRACT WITH GOD.

After a childhood spent reading primarily superhero comics and the like, Eisner’s graphic novel detailing various Jewish families struggling to survive in a broken-down New York tenement at the early parts of the 20th century were a revelation. They were real, they were heartfelt, they were wrenching and funny and sad and uplifting. They were life. And they were amazing. What Eisner could do with his innovative panel design, his unique blend of cartoonish and realistic art, his sense of wonder mixed with the mundane, was the stuff of great novels. It wasn’t comics like I’d ever read. These were people that populated young Eisner’s world as he grew up in New York. And they were people that I never experienced in my life—none of us would. The world had changed so much since he grew up, so his books took on a feeling of being a historical record as much as they were works of great fiction. If you want to know the struggles of Jewish people to make it in this country, read his books. They were all sad without ever being maudlin, and positive without being preachy. I’m not sure how he was able to pluck out and illustrate so many similar but varied stories, but they never felt repetitive. They felt like jazz, similar refrains that he’d spin off in directions you never anticipated. Really, rather than list a bunch of his books that you should check out, I’d suggest reading Scott’s column. Or visiting Will’s official site and perusing his entire catalog.

His work was vibrant up until the end. THE NAME OF THE GAME, his last graphic novel (released in 2003), was as solid and steadily illustrated as anything he’s done. And his upcoming book, THE PLOT, completed last summer, is said to be equally well-done, and probably more controversial than his last few books--it's a non-fiction look at the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Making it a must-read for another reason beyond just his involvement.

I met Eisner a few years ago at the San Diego Comic Con, the same year I spent a little time with Stan Lee. Talk about brushing shoulders with giants. But while I talked to Lee at length, my first meeting with Eisner was underwhelming. I never really bothered to ask any comics pros for autographs at these cons—don’t really care about that. I’d rather just talk to someone if I like their work. But I’d just bought a copy of Eisner’s LAST DAY IN VIET NAM book, and noticed him standing nearby. When it came to he or Lee, they were an exception—if I could get Will to sign the book, well, how could I not ask? I did, but he was tired from a full day of attending panels—he’d attend almost any panel you asked him to, all for the betterment of comics—so he politely bowed out. Ah, well.

However, this past summer was a little different—I sat with him on a panel at the con. Co-moderated it with outgoing IDW Editor-in-Chief Jeff Mariotte, actually. My first real week on the job and I’m moderating a panel with Will Eisner. We, IDW Publishing, were talking up an upcoming book featuring Will’s 1940s character John Law. We were getting set to release WILL EISNER’S JOHN LAW: DEAD MAN WALKING and Eisner was good enough to sit in on the panel and discuss the project. I was also able to announce to the crowd the news that his SPIRIT character had, after so many years, finally been optioned for a movie. JOHN LAW came out last month, and even before Eisner’s passing, helping shepherd that book was already one of the highlights of the job. It's nice knowing there'll always be an Eisner book out there with my name in the credits.

I was home sick the day Eisner’s death was announced, and that seems somehow appropriate. For one day, at least, I could reflect on the industry this great man built, before heading back to do what I can to see that it continues to do him proud.

As a postscript to all of this, this will be the first year that Will himself isn’t in attendance at the Eisner Awards at the San Diego Comic Con. This awards show, never quite the epitome of classy awards shows, is usually ignored by other media. Still, I think it could class things up enough if someone like an IFC or maybe even Spike TV set out to tape the show and air it later. Add in moments like a retrospective of Eisner’s life, visuals from the various books, Olympics-style profiles of some of the creators, and a good editor to cut out too many of the overly inclusive comics jokes, and you could put together a solid hour or two-hour program. It could be a nice thing to give the man, and his industry, some deserved attention. Just a thought.

When I saw THE AVIATOR a couple weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that, even at three hours long, it felt too abbreviated. It was great to see Martin Scorsese back feeling like a relevant filmmaker again—his last couple movies made me think he was maybe no longer that—but the movie had the unfortunate task of trying to encapsulate an oversized life like Howard Hughes’s into three hours. How could it ever do that?

It couldn’t, although I don’t say that to imply that the movie was anything but great. Hardly—it was one of the best movies I saw last year, and seeing Scorsese play with things like Technicolor and other past formats was a bonus above and beyond the movie itself. Leo DiCaprio, who never gets enough credit for his acting due to the fact that he’s either too young, too rich or, in this case, too young-looking to properly portray the large-living Texan Hughes, was excellent in the movie. In fact, he was so good that he left me wanting more. The movie, as it had to, glossed over so many details of Hughes’s life, leaving the audience still with no more information about the guy’s life than we had. Sure, the areas the film covered were fleshed out in places, but… I wanted more. Did Hughes really become the “E.G. Marshall in CREEPSHOW/Mr. Burns”-esque recluse that you heard about? How did this guy, who went slowly insane, according to the movie, manage to get it together enough to make movies, date starlets, advance the aviation industry, run an airline, testify in court… only to lose it all again? The movie ended with Hughes possessed by whatever demons were in his head, leaving you to think that his life went slowly downhill from there. Did it? Hell, I wanted to know why his gigantic plane, when displayed in Long Beach a decade or two ago, was billed as “The Spruce Goose,” when that name was shown to be a huge insult to him in THE AVIATOR. I had questions, dammit.

I’d considered trying to commission a piece for this site that covered other areas of his life from someone who knew more. But luckily, I didn’t have to. A week or two before, I’d gotten yet another DVD in the mail. Before the holidays, some random discs showed up at a furious clip, to the point where I barely even noticed what they were. But I was going through them recently and noticed one in particular: Shout Factory’s HOWARD HUGHES: THE REAL AVIATOR.

If I hadn’t seen THE AVIATOR, I doubt I’d found time to check this DVD out at all. Now, I was dying to watch it. It really did help fill in some of the gaps in Hughes’ life, even while it, too, ignored others. Shout Factory normally produces among the best DVD packages out there, so this one left my expectations high. While it didn’t quite deliver fully, it was interesting and helpful, at least.

The documentary itself won the “Grand Festival Award” at the 2004 Berkeley Video & Film Festival. It’s comprised of a voice-over that’s taken largely from Hughes’s own memos, conversations and interviews that he conducted in his later years. But then it’s narrated by a voice that pretends to be Hughes’s, which proves to be a bit distracting. I don’t want to hear someone trying to approximate Hughes’s Texas accent and cadence, I just want someone to narrate the moments of his life. It’s a pretty odd choice. Still, his words and the footage of him throughout his life is a great companion to Scorsese’s film. It also makes you wonder how his multiple wives were just excised from the movie, among other questions it raises. Obviously some details of his life would have to be trimmed for the movie—as it is, it comes in at three hours, as I stated—but the choice of cuts seem a bit curious after watching this.

The thing about Hughes’s mental illness and reclusiveness is, THE AVIATOR makes me think that it was a pretty steady degeneration. This documentary shows that it was a battle almost to the end, with Hughes recovering well enough following the flight of the “Spruce Goose” to take another wife of two, make more movies and continue to build Hughes Aircraft. I suppose mental illness is never anything that follows a direct path, even when that path is already known in this particular case, making it hard to portray even in a documentary. But I still had questions even after this ended, too.

The extras on the disc are pretty nice, too, covering everything from the real premiere of his movie HELLS ANGELS (the real footage is stunning, a premiere of such size that I doubt we’d ever see its like again), conversations with his close friends and ex-wives (none of whom have anything really disparaging, or enlightening, to say), looks at Hughes the aviator, his airplane designs, his actual testimony (even more riveting than it was in the movie, although DiCaprio captured that moment perfectly) and more. It’s a pretty complete set, so I’m not sure why I still want more. Maybe it’s because Hughes’s life was just so enormous, what he was able to accomplish and what he went through, that I want even more.

I got a really odd CD in the mail last week. I’m not sure if it’s serious, or a joke, or something in between. Of course, neither is the band. It’s the new release from a band called COULIER (Cool, Cooler, Coulier, due out from Stickfigure Records on January 18).

The band’s press materials says the band is “somewhere in between grindcore and cock rock, irony and sincerity, brute strength and smart-ass charm.” Which is a pretty apt description if you look at their song titles. The disc is populated with short tunes (under two minutes, for the most part) called things like “Start Believing in Dreams and Others Will Catch the Fever,” “There’s a Monster (Riff) Under My Bed,” “So This Is Your First Time with a Dude?”, “Khartoun’s Severed Head,” and”Carcassi’s 1st Etude, Op. 60.”

The band is nicely hard in a way that’s reminiscent of bands like early IRON MAIDEN, and has some nice riffing that calls to mind jams from DREAM THEATER. Although, in this case, the drums got a bit repetitive even over a half-hour disc. A little more variety in the drumming could have anchored the songs a bit more. Also, the band says that “the album is simply too abstractly aggressive for a vocal style to attempt to tie the band into one genre or another.” I don’t disagree with the logic, but for songs of the length of most of these, I really wanted some audible singing (some tunes have low murmurs in the background). If COULIER really wants to go with their sound, they need to fully embrace it and give us long tunes with multiple time-changes. The band’s musicians sound up to it, but every song on the disc, except for the last five-minute “opus,” was less than two minutes long. Just when I was starting to settle into a tune and see where it went, it ended and something else started. I’m good with the sound, but what I want is to be taken on a journey—give me some long tunes and really show me what you can do. Still, it’s an interesting start. I will say everything I’ve heard out of Stickfigure Records has been interesting, and COULIER keeps that streak alive. Now stretch a little bit, guys.

The guys, COULIER's Adam Newman in particular, responds:

awesome...we really appreciate the write up!

i'll tell why i find it funny, too...

we are entering the studio to record our next record in about 3 weeks, and it will be ONE track (an epic, if you will...complete opposite of this one)....so maybe you'll dig it a bit more than this one. this first record was definitely about putting all of our spazzy, goofy songs on a disc...the next will be the "journey" you're looking for!

And speaking of music… this past week, long-running music column PERFECT PITCH ran for the last time. David Thomas, who’d been with the site since it started in June 2003, moved on to other things. Meaning we have our first real opening in a while. I’d like to improve the music content we have here, meaning I’m open to proposals for his replacement.

Now, some caveats: what I’m looking for is… well, hard to quantify. I don’t really want a straight review column—that’s not really our thing here. At the same time, I’d like something that regularly talks about new releases throughout the year. But something that has a definite point of view without being trash-talking. Something that talks up bigger releases as well as profiles bands or CDs that don’t get as much attention. Something that can expand to discuss new music formats or other audio improvements on occasion, or live shows, or prognostications of coming discs. So if you’re of a mind to contribute something that could touch on any or all of these areas, and you have the knowledge and writing acumen to deliver something like that on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, drop me a line.

I’d be looking for something that briefly--briefly-- tells me what you’d call the column what you’d do to make it unique, what sort of background you have to do such a column and when you’d look to start. If you can tell me all of those things in a very brief fashion, I’d love to hear from you.

[UPDATE: I've received many great samples already, and one or more will definitely appear as a new column at the site. Please don't submit any more--this is no longer open. Thanks for all the great ideas!]

/chris

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